GOP will make history in Charlotte Monday in RNC that’s already had twists and turns
Even in a drastically scaled-down convention, Republicans will make history Monday when Donald Trump becomes the second president in a row renominated in Charlotte — and the first impeached president ever nominated for a second term.
At 9 a.m., 336 delegates will gather in the Charlotte Convention Center’s Richardson Ballroom to take the state-by-state roll call that will nominate Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Most will rush to catch flights home when their business concludes in the afternoon.
There’s speculation that the president himself could show up. He’s scheduled to be in Henderson County Monday for another event.
The nominations will be the extent of Charlotte’s portion of the Republican convention, which will continue for four nights in Washington and other sites.
Once planned as a multi-day event that would draw 50,000 people and a worldwide audience to Charlotte, the RNC found itself squeezed between the pandemic and politics. It arrives at the convention center after a dramatic and bumpy ride marked by disputes with Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and a brief detour to Jacksonville, Fla.
Now, like the Democratic production, it will be unlike any previous convention.
“It’s pretty remarkable in the grand scheme of history in American politics,” said Michael Bitzer, a Catawba College political scientist.
More than 160 members of the Republican National Committee arrived in Charlotte Friday for three days of closed-door meetings and training sessions that were to serve as a prelude to the convention week.
“We’re just going to kind of roll with the punches,” said RNC official Glenn McCall of Rock Hill. “This is not the fault of anyone that we had a worldwide pandemic.”
Trump enters his convention week trailing Democrat Joe Biden in national polls, though the two are virtually tied in North Carolina.
With Biden’s national lead and what many consider a successful convention, analysts say the pressure could be on Trump and his party. Bitzer said that’s because they’re in charge.
“American voters,” he said, “tend to reward or penalize the party in power.”
Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s Meet the Press, said that’s why the GOP convention is more important for the president than Biden’s convention was for him.
“When you’ve got a lead like (Biden) has . . . all you need is a base hit for your convention speech, you don’t need a home run,” Todd told the Observer. “Trump has a lot of work to do.”
Made for digital
Few details about the rest of the GOP convention have been released. But CNN has reported that Trump himself has taken a hands-on role in its production.
Most of the event is expected to take place at Washington’s Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, not far from the Trump International hotel. Scaffolding is being erected on the White House lawn for the president’s Thursday night acceptance speech. Pence is expected to give his at Fort McHenry in Baltimore.
While the DNC featured mostly taped appearances, the Republican convention will be a mix of taped and live programming though the main speeches will be live, CNN reported. Trump is expected to make appearances on each of the four nights of the convention, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The three main TV networks are giving each convention only an hour of prime time coverage per night, though cable networks are devoting more. Film clips like that of Thursday night’s teenage stutterer are often lost in a traditional convention but gain more prominence in a virtual one.
NBC’s Todd said this year’s conventions may of necessity be “made for our multi-tasking digital environment.”
“We may look back and say this type of convention is made for the digital environment,” he said.
Counter convention
Delegates won’t be the only people meeting in Charlotte for the GOP convention.
Police made multiple arrests at an anti-RNC protest Friday night in uptown Charlotte. Protesters of “Resist RNC 2020,” who plan a Monday afternoon “block party” in Marshall Park.
And a few blocks from the convention center, the Dunhill Hotel will serve as headquarters for what a group of Republican anti-Trumpers are calling the Convention on Founding Principles.
Organizers say while the pandemic will limit the number of people in Charlotte, they’ll feature a lineup of speakers that include former FBI Director Jim Comey, former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci. Some will give their remarks from a Charlotte studio, others from remote locations. They’ll all be streamed.
“The longer the party is held by Donald Trump, the more damage he will do to the country and to the party itself,” said organizer Evan McMullin, a former CIA officer who ran an independent presidential campaign in 2016. “We have to defeat President Trump in 2020 to defend the Republican Party and get the party on track.”
Candidates often get a bounce in the polls after their convention, though such jumps are getting smaller. And in a polarized electorate, it’s not clear just how much room there is to grow for either candidate. N.C. Republicans, however, say they’re confident they’ll come out of next week with momentum.
“I don’t know how much conventions ever really move the needle in a particular state,” said House Speaker Tim Moore of Kings Mountain. “With or without the convention, I’m feeling very bullish about North Carolina.”
Bitzer said Trump could count his convention as successful if he tightens the polling gap with Biden.
“If things stay status quo, that will make for a harder two months of campaigning,” he said.
This story was originally published August 23, 2020 at 6:00 AM with the headline "GOP will make history in Charlotte Monday in RNC that’s already had twists and turns."
